SAN JOSE, Calif. — The Volkswagen showroom that shares a house with Del Grande Seller Group’s headquarters incorporates a mural of surfers in close by Santa Cruz, hand-painted columns by an area artist and traditional VW Beetle and microvan fashions with their beachy, Northern California vibe.

However do not be fooled by the informal ambiance.

Like its high-tech neighbors within the coronary heart of Silicon Valley, Del Grande means enterprise. And which means satisfying sky-high expectations of consumers and workers by nurturing a staff tradition that encourages tender abilities resembling caring and onerous ones together with monetary outcomes.

Silicon Valley is among the best job markets within the nation. Working a historically low-margin retail enterprise in such an setting is not simple.

Dwelling bills are excessive, so Del Grande affords salaries that meet or beat the market’s going price — plus advantages, coaching packages and worker appreciation by in-work occasions and off-site enjoyable that features alternatives to win prizes, together with money.

“You possibly can have all this cool stuff, but when you do not have a staff and a tradition and a company the place folks need to come to work, really feel appreciated and have alternatives for progress, actually nothing issues,” stated Jeremy Beaver, CEO of Del Grande Seller Group.

Whereas the cool stuff does not embrace the limitless free meals and foosball fashionable at huge tech firms resembling Google, Del Grande does cater meals and snacks for normal employee-appreciation occasions and has put in traditional arcade video games in technician break rooms.

“Whereas we won’t have free-food cafeterias in each retailer, that does not imply we won’t have as a lot appreciation for our staff as everybody else,” Beaver stated.

Within the hallways above the VW showroom, partitions are lined with hand-drawn storyboards from the group’s management summit. This 12 months’s theme — “Rocketship,” which can also be the title of the “imaginative and prescient” espresso desk e-book that got here out of the summit — envisions a progress section because the retailer comes out of the pandemic.

“Develop our footprint,” “House supply free as much as 50 miles,” and “7 steps to a world-class walk-around” are among the many concepts logged on the boards that discover their manner into the yearly imaginative and prescient e-book that units the tone for the group’s 1,100 workers.

One factor that does not change from 12 months to 12 months is the group’s mantra: Integrity, Caring, Efficiency and Effectivity — in that order, Beaver stated.

“It is much less in regards to the monetary and gross sales numbers,” Beaver stated of the management summit and the imaginative and prescient e-book, which is shared and mentioned all through the 18-store group.

“We spend most likely 10 % of the time on that. We spend 90 % on the place we’re going, tips on how to get there and having the ability to cascade that message to our staff,” stated Beaver.

Throughout a tour of Del Grande’s headquarters, Beaver confirmed off one of many group’s coaching facilities, together with a design middle, name middle and in-house tech operations.

Del Grande Seller Group has been acknowledged as a prime office for 11 years by a Bay Space information group. Its attrition price has fallen to 13 % to date this 12 months from 37 % final 12 months, the retailer stated, and worker satisfaction rose to 80 % from 75 %.

New- and used-vehicle gross sales final 12 months rose 17 % to 23,822 throughout the group.

The corporate additionally revises its objectives quarterly and will drop initiatives that are not working or want altering. However that is a part of Silicon Valley tradition — the liberty to fail.

“There’s loads of issues we now have concepts on they usually do not essentially work and we now have to vary them or tweak them,” Beaver stated.

This 12 months’s “Rocketship” theme was chosen as a result of the group is launching a number of new initiatives, resembling house automobile supply, and added 4 dealerships. The theme additionally emphasizes teamwork since sending a rocket into house is determined by everybody doing their jobs, from prime executives to staff on the bottom.

When the administration summits began in 2013, the written materials that got here out of them was little greater than a PowerPoint presentation, Beaver stated. Later, there was a spiral-bound model and at last the present extremely produced mixture of pictures and phrases that is way more approachable than a slide deck.

“The e-book is the bodily piece of it, however it’s actually in regards to the idea of what we’re going to do, how we’re going to do it collectively and getting suggestions and collaboration,” Beaver stated.

The management summit and imaginative and prescient e-book replicate these values. “There are monetary issues which might be in there, however what DGDG is about is knowing what one of the best practices are from the world we live in and what number of of these we are able to incorporate right into a sustainable enterprise.”